in columbus

cake and kickball

fathers day brunch, above, my mama and her dad, below

near the restaurant where we went for fathers day brunch was a fountain that allowed the boys to rent remote-controlled sailboats

biomoms parents and almost all of her siblings live in columbus, so she brought her little clan out here for a couple weeks (could YOU get a 9 year old, a 7 year old, a five year old, and a two year old from LAX to columbus?? and not even on a direct flight! the womans some kind of superhero-magician) and i came down from my parents' in northern ohio to spend some time w them.

yesterday was timmys 8th birthday. he's the second oldest of my four brothers and i cannot say enough good things about him. everybody talks about their kids or their siblings like theyre the greatest, but this kid, i swear, hes got the purest soul. he is genuinely selfless - at eight! at his deepest core he has nothing but true empathy.
you know on flights when they say to secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others? he would never do that. he wouldnt even think of it. he wouldnt even notice that there was a mask in front of him until he was absolutely sure everyone else on the plane could breathe.
its remarkable because almost everybody has to learn that - especially kids. you have to learn that there are other people outside yourself, and they have feelings, and you have to respect those feelings. this kid though - that thought process is as natural to him as selfishness is most people. he doesnt need to learn manners because he instinctively cares about the people around him.
anyway, im crazy about him, and im really glad i got to be with him for his birthday.
my parents went back up to their house after tims party yesterday but i stayed here in columbus to get some more time in with the bio-fam.

i had a great conversation with bio-papa - finally. Bmom absolutely loves and respects him, a lot like the way i feel about my dad, so i was glad to finally have the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with him. he's as smart and thoughtful and deliberate and compassionate as she's been telling me he is for the last four years.

its a strange situation, being here among this family. i grew up in a small family - i was an only child. my mom has two brothers but one has lived in germany my whole life. so as a kid, my family on my moms side was my grandparents, an uncle and his wife and their two kids. my dad is the youngest of three, but his older sisters' children were all in their twenties when i was growing up, so i didnt grow up playing with cousins on that side either. this is all to say im not used to having lots of relatives around. it was really just me and my parents.
my bio-mom, though, is one of seven kids, and almost all of them have several kids - its a lot. i havent even gotten all the names down, let alone which kid belongs to which aunt or uncle, but every single one of them loves me. every one. theyre so happy im here, and they want to talk to me and hear my stories and tell me theirs - it feels like theyve been waiting for me. in a way, i guess they have. its all a bit overwhelming, going from such a small family to being part of this enormous tangle of relatives. but they want me here. i can tell, they really want me to be in their family - and they have since i was in utero.
i shouldnt be surprised - when i turned 18 i was allowed to open a box that Bmom and Bnana packed and sent with me to my parents and it was filled with family photos, heirlooms, letters, a journal by both of them; they clearly wanted me to know i came from a Family. the box told me that, and thats when i decided to find Bmama.

also, all these people look like me. and we all have the same feet.

ive never given much credence to the power of blood relation. i grew up outside of that. but seeing all these little faces that look like snapshots of my face ten, fifteen years ago is beyond surreal. theres a lot to be said about the circumstances that led me to have the families i have and how those circumstances have impacted me. i cant seem to find the words right now. i need to think more.

last night bio mom and her sister margaret and i stayed up really talking about everything that happened 22 years ago, and everything thats happened since, and i dont know what to say beyond acknowledging that my life is impossibly good. if you believe in luck, youd have to say that im the luckiest girl in the entire world. if you believe in god, youd have to say that hes blessed me beyond belief. if you believe in fate youd have to say that such an incredible, improbable maelstrom of love and support must be the foundation from which ill leap into greatness. if you dont believe in anything, then you probably dont believe that i could have not one, but two, families that are textbook examples of unconditional love, but youd still have to recognize that if this is a coincidence, its a remarkably unlikely one.

i mean, if i were to write a movie about adoption and use the truth of my situation for the story, no one would produce it. its an improbable possibility, and aristotle famously warned storytellers that the probable impossibility makes for a much better tale.